SAP White Paper: For the Betterment of Industry and Environment

Mining represents over half of national exports for at least 16 developing countries and is fuelling numerous emerging nations in the new global economy. However, it faces various new challenges. The rise of social media has left it exposed to public sentiment that does not always reflect the best mining has to offer. This delicate balancing act continues to shift and evolve as the industry moves into the digital age. Governments are also trying to regulate and offset the increasing need for raw materials in a world more susceptible to climate change and more in need of environmental protection than ever before.

Despite the huge amount of change that has transpired in other industries, mining itself has not fundamentally changed. Miners remain concerned with technologies that ultimately drive increased productivity while helping to ensure the people’s safety on-and offsite. While these advances are by no means trivial, they have not changed traditional mining practices. Miners remain very conservative in their approach to investment and risk yet seem very secure thinking that disruption for such a capital-intensive industry must come from a larger source.

Off the back of this new perception, governments around the globe have been introducing legislation to minimise the ecological damage mining creates. In return, this has made mining more conservative.

To better understand the challenges the industry faces and the new technologies that could disrupt mining in Australia, SAP and PwC have teamed up with a group of industry influencers to explore the future of the resources sector.